GRAND RAPIDS, MI — Just in time for fall weather (seriously, August?) Founders Brewing Co. has released a beer made for summer in Michigan.

All Day IPA in cans began hitting shelves across most of the brewery’s 25-state distribution footprint this weekend, with shipments headed to Florida and Texas in September.

The beer, a ”session ale” specifically brewed with a lower alcohol content, is the first Founders brew to be canned and represents the culmination of several years of careful roll-out that hasn’t been without some headaches.

In June, Founders announced the first shipments of cans were being delayed while the brewery caught up inventory levels depleted during production downtimes related to a $26 million expansion of the manufacturing and taproom areas.

Founders CEO Mike Stevens said All Day IPA has surpassed Centennial IPA as the company’s top seller despite not being available in January and February this year while the company rejiggered its brand categories.

First unveiled in early 2012, All Day IPA stands out from Founders' lineup mainly due to its lower, 4.7 percent alcohol by volume content. The point of a session ale is to be fully-flavored yet drinkable for long sessions without the imbiber getting loaded.

A version of the recipe won the silver medal at the 2010 Great American Beer Festival.

The delay in can distribution was not the first hurdle for All Day, which was limited to Michigan, Ohio, North Carolina, and the greater Chicago area last year upon rollout due to a soft hop harvest in 2011.

All Day IPA now represents 25 percent of the company sales volume and “we expect it to continue to grow,” said Stevens, perhaps to 30 or 40 percent of total volume.

Marketing has emphasized the recreation element, and Stevens said the idea with making it Founders' first canned beer is to appeal to anyone who likes to drink a beer outside where glass bottles are verboten.

Stevens said that with the brewhouse expansion in the company’s rearview (taproom completion sometime this fall) Founders is projecting to hit 115,000 to 120,000 barrels of production this year, with an expected increase to 175,000 barrels next year.

The company expects to fill-in some gaps in East Coast distribution in 2014, as well; adding small markets like Tennessee, Maryland and Delaware.

Not looking to repeat the production bottleneck of this summer, Stevens said Founders is giving itself a “sizable cushion in terms of available capacity versus demand.”

“This has been a very challenging year,” said Stevens. “I commend the people that work here. It was not the greatest environment. We had expansion on top of expansion. People were sharing offices. We were moving fast and hard and everybody was working long hours.”